"It seems doubtful that the Kaiser was a powerful player in the political and military game.

"He was a figure. He was also a construction. And he had very different aspects and facets from wherever you looked at him. It's relatively easy to portray the Kaiser as the evil figure, the representation of the horde of the Huns trying to conquer Europe.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

"The Kaiser had this unfortunate tendency to use strong language. He used irresponsible sentences filled with imageries --verbal imageries of blood, cruelty and violence. And it was very easy to ridicule him inside Germany; and equally easy to do this from an outside perspective. In effect it was easy to identify the Kaiser with everything that seemed to be not civilized, that seemed to be militaristic, and that seemed to be stiff and formal."